It took a reporter from CMJ saying, “Your information is a little hard to interpret,” to convince us to write a legitimate – though perhaps no one is so legit as Walter Kauffman – description of ourselves, our hobbies, our aspirations, and, of course, our views on deep ecology.

Let’s start with a little history, shall we?

Yes, that sounds nice. Shall we put on some tea?

The two thousand and seventh year since the birth of Christ is still in its infancy; the cold has lost its novelty and the people their fickle, feigned appreciation for the season. Spring is on its way, but no one knows it. What they do know is that they are antsily prepared for extraordinary things to happen. It is in this bleak time that Martin Bemberg and Reed Faitak, friends since potty training and musical partners since pubesence, meet Gary Sloan and his twin brother Jim between classes at the University of Arkansas. Martin, having recently heard Grizzly Bear for the first time while on his back and bedroom floor, has some big ideas and finds that the Sloan twins are just the men for the job. The band’s first show is in the first week of April at the innauguration of the New Delicious and features Martin’s roommate, another friend since toddlerdom, Molly Long. It is to go down as a sloppy, energetic bit of quirk, and an overall success. A few weeks later, the band performs at the University of Arkansas Battle of the Bands and though it doesn’t make the top three, the performance turns out to be a monumental one – it is here that Memphis Pencils are introduced to the core members of Mt. Comfort, Andrew McDougal and Drew Wallis, the latter of which is to become the band’s drummer. Skip forward a year and the Pencils are on the same stage accepting their “unanimously” endowed frist place prize.

What important events occurred in that liminal year?

Oh – the water is boiling. Yes, of course. In that year the Pencils did two tours through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Tennessee, where they met E.J. Friedman of Loudersoft, the founders of Fontee Fount, and many other characters. In addition, the band garnered support from local musicians and musical enthusiasts, a fact which helped them land a show with Slaraffenland in October.

What’s been happening since then?

Boy, this is good teat…er, uh…how ‘bout that Freud? After the battle of the bands, some hypomania, bearhugs, and a nomination for the Northwest Arkansas Music Awards’ “Best New Artist” award, the band hit the road again with Mt. Comfort through Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, where they bunked with Transmography (whoa, that’s a sweet treehouse) and were asked to include their music on the 8088 Record Collective’s newest compilation and potentially play at SXSW 2009. Recently, the Pencils were asked to play at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City after winning OurStage’s Grand Prize and, having lost both of the Sloans to the Office of Study Abroad, scrambled to replace them with Andrew McDougal and Neil Lord of Mt. Comfort, Brian Wolf of The Kicker Knot, James Pittman of Legion’s Endless Summer and Wally Phillips of Niceville, Florida.

How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it before?

With difficulty.

And so if someone were to ask you whether your songs are very different from one another, whether you treat texture and auxillary instruments such as banjo, glockenspiel, trombone, saxophone, synthesizers, melodica, and vocal harmonies as the krux of your sound, whether your mantra concerning song structure is “pattern up the quirks and quirk up the patterns,” and whether your biggest influences are The Zombies, Grizzly Bear, Andrew Bird, and Animal Collective, what would you say?

“Yes.”